La Junta football on the road at St. Mary's

The La Junta High School football team will play its second road game of the season on Friday as it travels to Colorado Springs to take on St. Mary's at Grace Center. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.

The Pirates are 0-5 on the season, but are a better team than their record indicates according to LJ coach Clint Buderus.

"They have a lot of young kids playing, but coach (Nic) Olney is doing a good job with them getting ready to play," Buderus said. "They play hard and they're a pretty good football team. They're dangerous. I know that for sure."

Offensively, the Pirates run a spread formation.

"They run four receivers on one side for some quad stuff," Buderus said. "They also run trips, trey, ace and stuff like that. They'll spread you out. They run the ball pretty well and they're effective. They can throw it, too."

On defense, St. Mary's lines up in a 4-4.

"Every once in a while, they'll jump into a 30 front," Buderus said. "They have two really good inside linebackers who come hard. They present a lot of problems for us."

The Tigers enter this week's game with a 3-2 overall record and a 1-2 record in the Tri-Peaks League after defeating Dolores Huerta 50-0 at home last Friday.

"It's good to get back on the winning side of things," Buderus said. "It's good for our kids and it's a confidence boost. We played well and it was good for the Homecoming thing and it was nice to see us play well for a change."